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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sense who wrote (174352)	7/7/2021 1:50:57 AM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217789

the Pakistanis apparently had it all figured out some time ago, from the get-go, of how they should, did, and are going to play the game bloomberg.com Pakistan Should Stop Looking to Leverage the TalibanTrading its influence over the militants for relief from painful reforms will cost the country’s economy. Mihir Sharma 7 July 2021, 07:00 GMT+8 Pakistan’s founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was convinced his fledgling nation’s most valuable asset was its location. In an interview a month after independence in 1947, Margaret Bourke-White of Life magazine painted a vivid picture of Jinnah’s expectations: “‘Pakistan is the pivot of the world, as we are placed’ — he revolved his long forefinger in bony circles — ‘at the frontier on which the future position of the world revolves.’” In 1947, the world was just entering a cold war. Bourke-White explained that Pakistanis expected the United States to pay handsomely for a strategically located ally’s development — and to fund its military as well. Decades later, tragically little has changed. As the U.S. follows through on President Joe Biden’s ill-considered abandonment of Afghanistan, Pakistani leaders are convinced they can use their leverage over the Taliban to win concessions from the U.S. Seven decades of geopolitical stratagems of this sort have not helped Pakistan, its citizens or its economy. Islamabad shouldn’t expect them to work any better this time. U.S. combat troops will have left Afghanistan by September. That’s also whenthe International Monetary Fund conducts a much-delayed review of its $6 billion bailout of Pakistan. The IMF wants Pakistan to step up the pace of macroeconomic reforms, particularly in its troubled energy sector. Prime Minister Imran Khan, on the other hand, is very conscious that elections are only two years away. So, the budget his government presented last month didn’t quite meet the IMF’s demands. While the budget did include a few tiny steps towards balancing Pakistan’s books, even those set off a political storm. One — a tax on mobile data usage — was immediately withdrawn. Khan doesn’t want to abandon the Islamist welfare state he promised voters in 2018. He has also pledged that his “new Pakistan” will stand up to the West more. Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin, defending the budget that was supposed to placate the IMF, thus insisted that Khan had “stood his ground” against the lender and, in fact, was expanding the welfare state. The IMF won’t be happy. And if it isn’t, Pakistan’s other big multilateral lenders, particularly the Asian Development Bank, won’t step in to help either. That’s where the U.S. comes in. In that 1947 interview, Jinnah claimed that “the United States needs Pakistan more than Pakistan needs the United States.” Similarly, the Financial Times recently reported that the government hopes that the U.S. need for help in stabilizing Afghanistan after the withdrawal should give Pakistan “some space,” particularly when it comes to the IMF. (Tarin denied the report.) Speaking to the New York Times, Khan claimed he was ready to cooperate with the U.S. and “do everything except use military action against the Taliban.” Yet, as one former Pakistani diplomat has pointed out, it’s hardly helping now. The Taliban’s leaders continue to live safely in Pakistan, even as they slow-walk negotiations with the Afghan government and continue to seize territory. Opinion. Data. More Data.Get the most important Bloomberg Opinion pieces in one email. Sign up to this newsletter Playing such games has not served Pakistan well. The last time Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, Pakistan had to deal with a flood of refugees and the permanent destabilization of its Pashtun-majority border areas. Worse, the Taliban have incubated and inspired other extremist movements, including in Pakistan itself. Between 2008 and 2016, the Pakistani version of the Taliban struck at will across the country — most horrifically, killing 132 schoolchildren in an army school in Peshawar in December 2014. Geopolitical conditions are also less favorable now. Pakistan’s early leaders prospered from picking the American side in the cold war. But a world increasingly shaped by disputes between the U.S. and China doesn’t look to be as profitable. Khan told the New York Times that what he really wanted was for the U.S. and China to “get on and trade with each other” — perhaps so his government could receive handouts from both. But Beijing isn’t exactly rushing to fill the gaps in Islamabad’s budget. Meanwhile, the U.S. doesn’t trust a Pakistan that it fears will use bailout money to pay bondholders linked to the Chinese state. More importantly, handouts would only perpetuate the boom-bust-and-bailout cycle that’s hampered the Pakistani economy for years now. If Khan really wants his country to prosper, he should focus on the tough structural reforms the IMF is demanding and put the economy on a more sustainable path. He may worry about the political cost. The price of continuing to coddle extremists would be much higher. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. To contact the author of this story: Mihir Sharma at msharma131@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Nisid Hajari at nhajari@bloomberg.net Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal. LEARN MORE

To: sense who wrote (174352)	7/7/2021 7:58:31 AM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 217789

Besides the Pakistanis, the Iranians (a/k/a Persians) also plan to engage w/ the Taliban The Greeks, Turks, and Spartans (are they still around?) probably will not show up, but we are only a few days beyond the midnight absconding of like-minded NATO, so lots of time for others to make appearance bloomberg.com Iran Hosts Taliban Talks With Afghan Officials as U.S. Exits War Golnar Motevalli July 7, 2021, 5:06 PM GMT+8 Iran is hosting talks between senior Taliban negotiators and officials from the Afghan government, as the militants make rapid territorial gains ahead of the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces. The Taliban said its delegation was led by Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, deputy head of the movement’s political office in Qatar, where months of formal peace talks between the Afghan adversaries appear to have stalled. Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency on Wednesday published video of the meeting chaired by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Tehran, without naming any of the Afghans present. “Iran is ready to help in the process of dialog between different factions in order to resolve the current conflicts and crises in Afghanistan,” Tasnim quoted Zarif as saying. The Taliban’s Mohammad Suhail Shaheen, another of the group’s negotiators, said discussions would “touch on the current situation of the country and exchange views on a peaceful solution of the issue.” Iran’s long border with Afghanistan places it on the front lines if fighting escalates and triggers a refugee crisis. The two countries have deep historical and cultural ties, and Iran is already home to almost 3 million displaced Afghans, according to the United Nations. While Iran is a majority Shiite power in the Middle East, officials in the government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in 2018 accused Tehran of ramping up support for the Sunni militant Taliban in retaliation for the Trump administration’s decision to reimpose sanctions on the Iranian economy. The Taliban has made a rapid advance in Afghanistan’s northern provinces, forcing tens of thousands of families to flee their homes. Afghan forces, no longer backed by U.S.-led NATO troops, have often had to retreat, at times into neighboring countries like Tajikistan. The U.S. has handed Bagram Airfield -- their largest military base -- back to the Afghan government as part of its plan to completely exit the country by Sept. 11 after two decades of war. The Biden administration has asked three Central Asian nations to temporarily house at least 9,000 Afghan civilians who worked with American forces and could be targeted by the Taliban. Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal. LEARN MORE Sent from my iPad